Don't Tell Me Because It Hurts
by Band8PGeek
Summary: Duck Dodgers universe. Commander X-2 did not work his way up from nothing just to have his goal, his girl, his woman, ripped from him at the last second. It's enough to drive one crazy, isn't it?
1. I Know What You're Saying

**_Don't Tell Me Because It Hurts  
_Alternate Title: Hush  
**_(Duck Dodgers) Commander X-2, delaying the inevitable but unwanted answer, takes a moment to wonder how it came to this and if the ends justify the means as far as love is concerned. _

Oooh. My. This is awkward. A new fandom for me, and I don't even know what to say to it except the obligatory "this is my first story for this fandom so don't pull any punches" and "CommanderD beta-read this for me so here's a shout-out". I am a complete social reject when it comes to these things.  
So I'd better get on with it before you get a restraining order.

Disclaimer: The characters in this story, including Commander X-2 AKA Marvin the Martian (from whose point of view I am attempting to write), do not belong to me. Then, in a sense do they belong to anyone? Or are they their own entities, copyrighted by themselves as constructs of good, evil and somewhere in between? Or do they maybe just all belong to Space Angel? Yeah, I'll shut up now.

* * *

She hopes I don't mind.  
She actually asked me if I mind.  
She's just torn my heart out from my chest and she asks me if I mind!!

OK, that was admittedly an extreme reaction. Calm down, Marvin. Take it down a notch.  
Who am I kidding? I can't take it down a notch. If anything, I need to be MORE reactive. After all, this isn't exactly a normal situation.

How in the Martian nether-region is him - and her - together - **that way** - normal?

It's incomprehensible. It doesn't happen.  
Yet it's happening right now. I see it right before my eyes - well, technically my mind's eye, predicting what probably happened - him pledging 'allegiance' to the Martian rule, proclaiming love for her, she returning it, they coming up here to tell me.  
The allegiance is a heist, I can feel it. Sadly, the love is apparently not. He's never looked so serious before, nor she more captivated, as they wait for my response, hoping for my "not minding", waiting to get the hell out of here so they can discuss a union of hearts and souls and maybe even galaxies...

A union that was supposed to be mine for the taking.

What's that you say?  
_What am I talking about?_  
It wasn't obvious to you either? My constant playing up to her, trying to impress her with my admittedly underhand schemes? My insistence of protecting her and being her number one protégé? My refusal to tame the passion in the seat of the theatre during that whole talent show fiasco?

It wasn't subtle. Far from it, even. I practically wrote it in neon letters.  
Which only makes this...dare I say it, this _betrayal_ hurt all the more.

They're still waiting for my response, confused about my reluctance to answer a simple "not minding" query. She, the golden one, looks at me with a combination of pity and worry.  
He, however, takes a different approach. Brief glances at her, then back to little pithy me. He tries to stare me out, searching eagerly for a crack in the armor.  
Analyzing me.

He knows. I'm sure of it. He knows of my feelings. That's why he's doing it, really; not to hand over the love he festers (or so he claims), but to overrule my own. Make it worthless, emotionless, amateur in comparison.  
He wants to beat me again. As he does every eon on a regular basis. As if putting me down in physicality, speed and ...physicality wasn't enough, he now comes to wreck me emotionally?

Is my life just meant to be completely broken by him?  
Is that it?

The worst part of all of this is, I can't even say any of this. No matter how much I wish it.  
I want to say _yes I mind, I mind more than you think I do_. I want to push him aside, make my own emotions clearer than they already are, if that's possible. I want to plead that she reconsider, stop her from making a horrible mistake; I want to finally kiss her, make her feel wanted the way I want her; I want to do this, do that, I want to, I want to... to... to...

There is so much I want to. Nay, need to.

But I can't to.  
No, wait, that made no sense, let me rephrase that - But I can't do a thing. I have to obey my duty to the empire, remain silent, bite my tongue and say _no, of course I don't mind, and I'm very pleased for you_, the words trying and failing to disguise the tinge of pain and...almost bitterness.  
My heart hurts, but my head must remain resolute on this.

I have no choice.

Still, I reconcile in the fact that even now I have a backup plan. It only takes one slip-up to show a monster's true colours. And when he does, which he undoubtedly will, I will be there with the metaphorical colour camera.  
Yes. I will bide my time for now, perhaps even give him a chance. But if he so much as lays a hand on her the wrong way... he will pay.

After all, it is my duty. My duty to protect my queen.

My Queen.  
My dear Queen Tyr'ahnee.  
No one else's.

Back off, Duck Dodgers.


	2. So Please Stop Explaining

So I finally downloaded Of Course You Know This Means War And Peace to watch later, and as a happy bunny I thusly decided to extend this fic into a multi-chaptered...thingy. I bet you're all afraid of my thought process now.  
Just to clarify matters, this is set before the abovementioned episode. Dunno why, but it is.  
I'm gonna try something a little psychologically different today. Any confusion that results from this chapter (and I bet there will be, as this chapter is extremely rambly in places)? Just ask. I don't bite.

Disclaimer: No, extention doesn't change anything, I still don't own them.

* * *

It's been two weeks. Exactly fourteen days since I let my Queen go.  
I know it has been, because my calendar says so. But Marvin is arguing with me again; it's interpreted it as centuries. I can't deny that the passage of time felt long while I was going through it; but a calendar is more accurate than gut feeling and my calendar says it's only been two weeks.  
Now stop insisting on the contrary, Marvin, and continue to be suppressed.

Poor emotional Marvin. Two weeks have gotten to him; he's a separate entity of my psyche now. How it came about I don't really remember, but I must say it's really convenient. Pushing all mushy conscience into Marvin only leaves X-2. That's me.  
Not only is it a lot more psychologically efficient having two of me, but it also makes it easier for me to bear watching my Queen and that filthy Earthling together, I feel.

Or rather don't feel. The feelings are up to Marvin.  
The naive fool.

_Don't call me naive. I'm not naive, I'm not psychotic, I'm not crazy.  
No. Wait a minute. That last one was a lie - I am crazy. Crazy, mad, up the wall, driven by emotion to emotion. Emotion.  
I have too much of it. Anger, frustration, sadness, fear, worry...all the negativity. Breaking down crying, hitting the wall, being mentally ripped apart...  
Too much to cope. Can't cope.  
How can you be so clinical, X-2? How can you sit there pretending that everything is OK when an inner part of you is torn apart so? _

Marvin, with all due respect, shut up. I am trying to hear myself think.

I need the thinking time. I just don't understand it - I was supposed to root out the monster that undoubtedly resides in Dodgers. But two weeks, fourteen days, and...nothing.  
No arguing, no disputes over what is right and wrong. There hasn't been a single disagreement between them. She hasn't chastised him once. And he hasn't laid a finger on her in the wrong way.  
Oh, he's laid a finger on her. He's laid more than fingers; he's laid his body and soul onto her, INTO her. I admit that he appears extremely committed to keeping up his image of his sheer masculinity over her, his reputation as "wooer of Queens and saviour of planets". My blood boils just thinking of him... sullying her beauty. Corrupting her.  
Or rather my blood would boil if it were my blood.

_Liar. _

But I am not buying this image. I am convinced that there has to be animosity behind the scenes, behind the curtain of forced jolliness. ...**Yes** it's forced. Just because no one else can see it doesn't mean that it isn't there. I can feel it, I can sense it.  
He's dying to abuse her, sooner or later. And I'll be the first to notice.

_Oh X-2. Stop lying to yourself. You're deluded.  
__T__he only monster that emerges from this whole sick scenario is you, X-2. You worker drone.  
You want to deny the Queen the happiness that she craves, __and has finally gotten. You want to ruin her, use her for your own sick purposes. _

Love is not sick. You and me both - the aching love for her is the one emotion we do share.

_Ha! You can't share emotion. He who is so devoid of it that he creates me to vent it into. _

Emotion is trifling anyway; it gets in the way of true purposes. You can't get the real Queen back through emotion.

_And you **can** get her back by tearing her dreams apart, I take it? You're just like Dodgers on the battlefield - commanding and reckless.  
That hurt, didn't it. I know, X-2.  
You might as well face it, your theories are incorrect. Dodgers will never hurt her. He loves her too much._

Shut up, Marvin. I've let you talk too long.

I'm not lying. I'm not deluded. Delusion is technically an emotion, and as Marvin so, uh, **tactfully **stated, I am devoid of such trivialities now. Such burdens are his to bear alone.  
As for me, I have to keep my vigilant watch, rooting out the discomfort beneath the relationship and exposing it.

But how can I do so when nothing is appearing to suggest it? I can't accuse Dodgers of maltreatment of our Beautifulness - I mean Highness - with no proof. I'm certain of his treachery, I'm sure, I'm absolute...I'm...I'm...  
Not sure anymore.

_This makes you very angry, very angry indeed. Remember that? _

Thought I told you to be quiet.

What if, indeed, against all odds, Marvin is right? What if there is no deep dark secrets, just happiness and rainbows?

No. Impossible. It can't be. I'm not wrong. I'm never wrong.

What was that? No, that isn't a tic. I just have something in my eye.

_And your teeth? I hear the sound of teeth feverishly grinding. _

I'm just. Chewing. Something.

_Sure sure, right right. And that growl is entirely coincidental and not coming from you either. _

Marvin, for the last time, shut up. I have to remain focused on-  
_No, **you **shut up. _

Do **not **tell me to shut up, Marvin. You are emotional me, I am practical me, heart does not tell head what to do.  
_But guess what? I'm telling you to shut up. _

**Marvin, you are the lower psyche; I am giving you a DIRECT order--**

_Direct, indirect, it doesn't matter. I will tell you to shut up. Shut UP! Shut up, X-2. Shut up with your robot and your devoid and your goddamn being correct and right all the time! Got it? Just shut up, stop looking out for her, and listen to what **I** have to say for a change! _

_You think you're such hot stuff, do you not. Stalking her with your fancy theories and exposure and such. But if Dodgers actually hates the Queen as badly as you say he does, don't you think you would've noticed it by now?! He doesn't keep his emotions in the dark, X-2. Unlike you, he actually knows when to express himself, express the truth. And the truth of the matter is, he's in love with her. For real this time. And she loves him back! _

_Did you understand that last part? SHE LOVES HIM BACK. She's always loved him, do you not get that?!  
_No she hasn't! You're getting it all wrong, Marvin-  
_No, X-2, I'm not. For once in my pathetic two weeks of existence, I am not "wrong", as you call it, I am RIGHT. She loved him from Day 1. She swooned over his mind, interpreted spots of good luck as cunning deviousness. Remember that "detoxifying of Dodgers" episode? "Perfect body to match his perfect mind"?  
_That was sarcasm--  
_No it wasn't! It was sincere! She believed his mind was perfect! And now that he's fallen for her charms too...  
_Shut up, Marvin, I don't want to hear it!  
_X-2, open your eyes to this: you are washed up! This entire operation was doomed to begin with!  
_Shut up!  
_She's never going to notice you now!  
_**Shut up! **  
_After all, how can some crummy little soldier take priority over a Galactic Protectorate? _

**SHUT UP, Marvin! **That was below the belt! I'm not a soldier, I am Commander X-2, Commander of the Martian fleet! Not a soldier!  
Besides, she may have loved him from Day 1, I can't deny that. But I've loved her for longer! Since I first laid eyes on her, I loved her! I yearned to be in the same room as her, to even be in her presence! I did NOT start from the bottom up to get to a position where she notices me only to have her ripped out from my grasp at the last minute! And I will NOT have a back-sassing inferior piece of psychological Marvin tell me otherwise!  
"Commander?"  
No, Marvin, don't say anything! I'm sick of hearing your emotional little voice whisper things that will never happen into my ear!  
_That wasn't me.  
_Don't lie to me, you little-  
"Commander? Why are you talking to yourself?"

Oh.  
My Queen.  
Dodgers.

Heh. Sorry about that. I thought I was...somewhere else. Didn't see you.

"Never mind that now, Martian. For some reason, Queenie over here wants to make you one of the top dogs for tomorrow's wedding. I don't really see why she'd choose you, personally, but-"  
Wedding?  
"Don't play dumb. Everyone's been talking about it."  
"Um, I think what Dodgers is trying to say, Commander, is that...well, we're going to get married tomorrow. Would you mind being best man?"

...

...

"I..."

_Good. You've finally learned to give up. You've learned to cry again.  
No. Not you. We. We're back together. Not apart, not psychologically separated.  
Just as it should be. _

_Welcome back, Marvin. Welcome back, X-2._

_Cry, Martian, cry. _


End file.
